It is becoming increasingly common for content consumers to receive audio content and audio video (A/V) content on a client device, such as a mobile device, via wireless in a home or other facility. A wireless gateway connected to the internet transmits selected data which is then received by the mobile device. It is also becoming increasingly prevalent to receive audio content and A/V content from a cable television provider into the home by a wired connection or satellite, and then to the client device via a wireless communication.
For streaming such audio and A/V content, a streaming session is established between the client mobile device and the wireless gateway. When the mobile device and the wireless gateway are engaged in a streaming session, the content is streamed as a data stream from the wireless gateway to the mobile device as a wireless radio signal. The streaming session can be implemented according any known media streaming communications protocols, including protocols where a continuous stream of data is broken into smaller pieces which are transmitted.
It is also becoming increasingly common for houses or other facilities to have two or more wireless gateway devices. For example, the house or facility may have plural gateway devices including a Gateway 1 and a Gateway 2. Problems in streaming sessions from a cable provider can occur in such an environment. For example, when Gateway 1 is engaged in a streaming session with a client device, Gateway 1 is the wireless access point (such as a WiFi enabled access point) to route the content from the outside network, such as the cable television provider, by wireless communication to the client device. When the mobile client device moves out of the wireless zone of Gateway 1 into the wireless zone of the another gateway device, e.g., Gateway 2, a wireless handoff occurs from Gateway 1 to Gateway 2. However, Gateway 1 remains the source of the content for the streaming session. Once this transfer occurs, the streaming session with Gateway 1 will either terminate, requiring the user to restart the streaming session, or the streaming session experiences degradation in quality and performance because the streaming session has to go through an additional network hop to get from Gateway 1 to Gateway 2 and then by wireless to the client. Because of signal delays, the audio or A/V content experiences a glitch during this handoff.
An additional problem that can occur when plural gateways are in a home or other facility is maintenance on one of the gateway devices requiring a reboot of the gateway device. If content is streaming from a gateway that is scheduled to go offline for maintenance, there is not an easy way to make use of the remaining gateway to avoid an interruption in the streaming content.